


the point of contact

by concreteskies



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/F, also everyone is gay and it's beautiful, also i'm having them dance to abba again is this becoming a literary theme now?, coffee shop AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 16:55:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13439157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concreteskies/pseuds/concreteskies
Summary: A Coffee Shop AU in which Kara and Lena are both baristas and work the night shift a lot.





	the point of contact

**_The point of contact_ **

_And then my soul saw you and it kind of went_

_“Oh there you are. I’ve been looking for you.”_

_\- I wrote this for you // pleasefindthis_

 

* * *

 

 

“So what do you think about bow-tie over there?” Kara asks, leaning on the counter right next to Lena. It’s a quiet day at the coffee shop, so both of them are standing behind the counter, watching the different kinds of people filter in and out. Their counter opposes the window front with the glass door, where a little open sign is swinging and where a blackboard reads their daily special.

The city outside is cast in grey skies and rain falls heavily against their windows and every customer enters their shop in a rush today, only to then shake off the rain and sit down with a quiet sigh. It’s a coffee and cream kind of day, a day for sitting in one of the shop’s armchairs to read a book, a day for quiet laughter and woolen socks. And yet they are standing behind the counter, waiting for the time to pass as they brew coffee and tea for their customers. Lena is glad her eight-hour-shift is with Kara at least. That always tends to make things better somehow.

The man Kara indicated with a little nudge of her head has just come in, bell ringing above his head. And he has chosen to sit at a table near their window front where he is now carefully studying their menu.

“Definitely a flat white kind of guy,” Lena replies. She is wiping down the machinery behind the counter and has only stopped her movements to regard the man for a second to pass judgement. It’s a game they’ve started playing on quiet days like this: Matching customers and their coffee order, trying to assess a person’s personality by describing it as a type of coffee. It’s fun. And it passes the time.

“Yeah I was thinking that actually,” Kara replies back before reaching for her note pad so she can step out and take his order. “He’ll probably also order biscotti.” She says over her shoulder before putting on her customer smile and walking towards his table.

When Kara comes back, Lena is already waiting there for her with an expectant smile.

“So?”

“Correct on both accounts.”

“Go us,” Lena laughs and makes room for Kara to step in next to the coffee machine to prepare the drink. In the meantime Lena gets the plate and biscuits ready to go, so all Kara has to do is turn around and place the cup on the saucer, take the tray and serve him. They’ve gotten good at this routine; and Lena often finds herself struggling when she is working with new colleagues who don’t anticipate her every move like Kara does.

 Once Kara has served him, she retrieves her original spot behind the counter. She leans against the back wall next to where Lena is standing with her arms crossed and for a while the two of them just observe the coffee shop and its different customers.

“What do you think is his back story?” Lena asks, leaning in just enough to have her shoulder brushing against Kara’s. She is once again indicating the bow-tie man and Kara takes a second to consider her question.

“I think he is working as an IT professional. All his colleagues think he is cool and analytical but deep down he is looking for love,” Kara replies back, watching the man unfold his newspaper.

Every one of their customers is looking for love or their inner hero, according to Kara. At first, Lena had tried to argue that there were more things in life than love, like careers and ambition; but Kara had just looked at her for a long time and had then stepped away in place of a reply. Lena had thought she’d angered her somehow and when she had gone to apologize after their shift, Kara had just looked at her and said, “You know, I’ve been thinking about what you said and I’ve applied it to every person I know and I still think that deep down, everybody wants to be loved more than anything else, whether they know it or not.” And somehow Lena hadn’t found it within herself to argue with that.

And hence her engagement in her customers’ love life from behind the counter had been formed.

“Maybe we should try and set him up with that blonde over there,” Lena says, nodding her head vaguely towards a blonde woman sitting two tables away from him. She’s on her own as well, reading a novel that Lena had earlier identified as _The Count of Monte Christo._

“Do you think she’d be his type?” Kara asks. She is watching the woman with newfound interest now and Lena thinks for the umpteenth time that subtlety really isn’t Kara’s strong suit.

“They have the same order,” Lena shrugs.

“Because that’s the recipe for love.”

“Who knows, maybe all those apps have it wrong. Maybe they should just analyze people’s coffee order and take it from there.”

“In that case, I’d be soulmates with Mike,” Kara points out and Lena finds herself cringing at the notion of Kara with their ex-colleague.

“Maybe my thesis needs some work,” Lena relents and smiles when she feels Kara’s shoulders vibrate with laughter next to her, when she hears her soft laugh.

(These are her favorite shifts. The ones with Kara laughing. The ones with her smiling. The ones that are easy and never have her glancing at the clock.)

 

* * *

 

 

The night shifts with Kara are always interesting. They’re interesting because usually the night shifts are dead at the coffee shop. After 11pm there are rarely any customers and if they do drop by, they usually take the coffee to take away.

They’ve often tried to talk to the manager about this and how useless it is for them to be open until 2 every night, but he had insisted that it was part of their marketing strategy and was an important factor in their customer-service-relationship. And so Lena often finds herself on the nightshift with Kara, lying down on the floor behind the counter, staring up at the clock, watching as the time passes by while telling each other stories. They mostly spend their time talking. They talk a lot.

Lena honestly doesn’t think that she’s ever spoken to a person this much in her entire life. Her family had been quiet and reserved and she has never really been the type to have friends. And so when Kara had asked her what her favorite color was during one of their first shifts together, she had first thought it was a trick question. She had, however, quickly learned that Kara was just genuinely interested in her and genuinely wanted to know these things about her. And in this case, _these things_ means everything. They once spent an entire hour discussing their list of preference for citrus fruit, which really should have been the most boring conversation ever, but had actually made them both laugh until their stomachs had hurt and they were both crying with laughter.

Some nights they don’t talk though. Some nights they just throw M&Ms at each other’s mouths and see how many they can score. Some nights they do a staring contest. And some nights they play “The Worst in the World of Coffee”. It’s a game they invented and that all the others have frowned upon since. The gist of it is to collect odd orders customers make during the day and to then recreate and drink them. Sometimes they turn out surprisingly good but most of the time they’re just plain bad. And so this night has been declared _Worst in the World of Coffee Night_ and the two of them find themselves sitting across from each other around a small bistro table.

 “Okay,” Kara states with a theatrically serious expression, “I challenge you to this absolute delight.” She accompanies her dare by pushing a cup towards Lena with her index finger.

“What is it?” Lena asks, eyebrows drawn together in genuine trepidation. This is always the stage of the game where she regrets every single decision that has led her up to this point of sitting across from Kara and her cup filled with an oddly colored beverage.

“A base of espresso with a hint of matcha, cream, pumpkin spice and cocoa,” Kara explains.

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Lena says and immediately regrets it when she finds Kara grinning at her in response.

“It also has some blended kale.”

“What?”

“You said you loved kale,” Kara says, feigning innocence with one small flutter of her eyelashes.

“Kale is good for you, Kara.”

“So you should be happy to drink this then.”

“I’m not happy,” Lena grumbles.

“So you admit defeat?”

“No, I am a Luthor after all,” Lena replies and for a second she thinks about what her mother would think about her using the Luthor name in relation to this drink standing in front of her. The thought of her mother’s vague screeching does make her smile then. Her smile immediately falls however and is replaced by a grimace of disgust when Kara then pushes the drink a little closer to her.

“Okay,” she nods more to herself than to Kara and reaches out for it. She places the cup at her lips and takes a couple quick sips. She tries her hardest not to flinch with every sip, aware of the fact that Kara is laughing at her from across the table. She briefly considers throwing the drink in her face but eventually settles on quickly shooting out her leg to kick her, which only serves to make her laugh harder.

“Oh, I think I got used to it,” she says after a couple more sips. When she takes another sip though, she nearly spits it out again and coughs a couple times. “Nope.”

Kara just laughs and laughs at that, and while Lena forces down the last sips of the concoction from hell, she thinks that maybe this game is worth it after all, if only to hear Kara laugh like this.

“Okay now you,” Lena says after she’s gulped down a full bottle of water to get rid of the taste and Kara has managed to stop laughing. She retrieves her drink and places it on the table in front of Kara.

“What is it?”

“Do you want to guess?”

“Not really.”

“Espresso base-“

“Of course.”

“Then some coconut oil-“

“Are you kidding me?”

“Nope, so coconut oil and then one cookie that’s been added precisely half an hour ago.”

“Lena that’s horrid, it’ll be all soggy and disgusting.”

“I just drank kale coffee.”

“Lena…a stale cookie, also no one ordered a cookie to be put in half an hour ago.”

“No, but I watched them drink it and that’s the way they did. And I found that so inspiring, I wrote it down for this precise occasion… so, do you admit defeat?”

 “I’ll drink it,” Kara says and grabs the drink in one swift motion.

“You’re not allowed to hold your nose,” Lena objects to Kara trying to cheat herself out of tasting her end of the deal.

“Oh, I’m sorry is this in the official rule book?”

“You know, I’m thinking we should write one because we have this discussion every time.”

“You’re a nerd.”

“Well, you’ve put up with me for the past three years so you know I will win this argument, so stop holding your nose.”

“Fine,” Kara whines and practically tips the drink back, swallowing as little as possible.

“This was so gross, honestly Lena, I don’t know why we keep doing this to ourselves.”

“I know, I think this every time. We should probably stop doing this.”

They both look at each other then and grin while Kara says, “we’re not gonna though, are we?”

“No, I like your face too much when it scrunches up like this.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Oh hey, did you get sent on break too?” Lena asks, surprised to find Kara stepping into the break room. She still has twenty minutes left on her own break and it’s rare that two of them are sent on break at the same time as they are usually understaffed.

“Yeah, it’s quiet today. But okay listen-“ Kara says, eyes lighting up. Before beginning her story though, she steps to the little mini fridge to retrieve her lunch box and sits down at the table across from Lena, who has sat up straight at her ominous introduction.

“You know the blonde lady?”

“Who?”

“Margaret,” Kara elaborates. She’s the blonde woman who was reading _The Count of Monte Christo_ a couple weeks ago and whose name they finally found out at the beginning of this week.

“Oh right, what was her story again?”

“Well you thought she was doing bee keeping, when clearly she is doing botanical gardening. But anyway, remember how we thought she might work well with bow-tie man?”

“Yes.”

“Oh by the way, his name is Frank. I did his order today.”

“Of course his name is Frank, flat white?”

“Yes, of course, so there was one empty table but I told him it was reserved for someone so he had to sit down with her and,” here Kara pauses dramatically to look at Lena with a deep and serious expression, “they started talking,” she ends her sentence on a squeal.

“Oh my goodness,” Lena squeals as well. Frank had become a regular customer over the past weeks, which had brought them to the conclusion that he probably just moved into their neighborhood. Most of their customers are regulars and have their regular tables and regular orders, which made it possible to even try and set them up in the first place.

“I know,” Kara grins.

“I like them.”

“I know, always patient and kind. You know, I think that’s a flat white kind of trait.”

“I know.”

“You can really tell a lot about a person by their coffee order, can’t you? I mean, I know we started this as a joke to pass the time, but it really does work, doesn’t it?” Kara asks.

“Yes, for example you are a pumpkin spice kind of girl, all sweet and kind and innocent,” Lena smiles and her smile only widens when she finds Kara blushing ever so slightly at her comment.

“Well, you are a black coffee kind of girl which means you try and pretend to be all hard edges and tough.”

“What are you suggesting by pretend,” Lena feigns offence but the soft smile on her lips, the one that she has grown to associate with Kara, is betraying her. She’s never managed to create that illusion of toughness and power around Kara that seems to come to her so naturally whenever she is around her colleagues from her second job at the lab or her family for that matter.

“Don’t think I don’t know about the three packages of sugar you pour into your coffee, you, Lena Luthor, are a big softie at heart.”

“I-“

“Don’t worry your secret’s safe with me.”

And Lena smiles again at that, a small intimate kind of smile this time. (One that hardly anyone ever gets to see.) Because she knows that Kara means this as a joke but she also genuinely doesn’t believe that there is a single person in this world who knows her as well as Kara does, who knows her inside out, and who has had her back right from the start.

 

* * *

 

 

**3 years ago, the same break room**

It’s been three months. Three months since Lex’s conviction. One month since she started working at the coffee shop. It’s honestly impressive that she lasted this long to begin with, but that doesn’t make today any easier.

She’s glad that she’s allowed to escape to the break room now, where the noise of the café is filtered to a faint echo and where only the soothing and now-familiar scent of coffee hangs in the air instead of shouts and accusations.

There is one other person currently on break. Kara is sitting at the table, eating some dish she got at the Chinese takeout around the corner. She seems to be mildly obsessed with it too, because Lena has seen her get it almost every shift she’s worked with her so far.

She sits down as the table as well, offers Kara a tight, lopsided kind of smile. Kara responds with a genuine smile and it’s almost too much to look at, this genuine happiness to see her, so Lena focuses her eyes on her hands, now lying in her lap. They’re still trembling ever so slightly, like there is a scream lodged into them and it can’t crawl its way up into her mouth. Like there’s teeth to them.

The fridge is humming softly in the background and Kara’s fork scratches against the styrofoam box and her chest feels like it’s closing up. _I refuse to be served by a Luthor, who knows if she’ll try to poison me._

She should have seen comments like this coming. But it still knocked her out, right there behind the counter. She can feel the words’ bite everywhere, like little ghost teeth pricking away at her skin, like they’re trying to crack her open. She can’t cry now. She just needs to hold on a little longer.

“How are you?” She hears Kara’s soft voice filter through to her.

“Fine,” she hears herself replying like it’s not her mouth doing the speaking, like the word is holding its breath _. Fine_. Her hands are still shaking and she clenches them in her lap, forms a fist with them and thinks that this is what the word _unravel_ must feel like, and then something inside her just gives way. She can feel the tears escape from her eyes, feels the way the tremor edges upwards, closer to the dome of her mouth and bites down on it. Her jaw hurts with the effort to keep all of this contained but she still takes a tremulous breath of air that feels nauseatingly loud at this moment. She is aware of Kara’s worried eyes on her. She tries to wipe away her tears quickly but there’s no way of confining them, no way of letting this go if only to catch her breath.

She hears the faint scratch of a chair and is barely aware of the fact that Kara is scooting closer to her. She can see the way Kara’s hand is flinching, the way she is contemplating whether to reach out.

Lena doesn’t even know her. She’s been kind to her, of course. They’ve worked a couple shifts together and she knows that she’s Alex’ sister and loves pizza. But that’s about it. And still she is here, sitting on one of these terribly uncomfortable break room chairs, willing to reach out for her, willing to take her hand. And she must decide that she wants to reach out because she places her hand ever so slightly on top of Lena’s still curled up one. She moves slowly as if not to startle her, as if to give her a chance to pull away should this not be what she needed. 

“I’m sorry,” Lena manages to whisper through her tears. Even she is aware of how strained her voice sounds, of how much an effort it takes her to form these words at all.

“Don’t be sorry,” Kara replies, voice soft and soothing and if it were any other person, that softness would have sounded fake or it would have made her terribly uncomfortable to be sitting here with a strange person holding her hand. But somehow with Kara it isn’t. It’s just a comfort in the oddest of places.

“I just-“ she isn’t even sure what she’s trying to explain and so she’s glad that Kara interrupts her with a gentle, “It’s okay.”

“Do you want to go outside for a bit, catch some fresh air?” Kara asks then and Lena finds herself nodding a tiny, half-hearted nod.

“Yeah maybe.”

They step outside through the backdoor so they don’t have to walk through the shop. There’s a small backroad there, empty except for a couple garbage cans and a couple parked bicycles. They sit down on the curb next to each other, Kara stretching her legs out and leaning back slightly onto her arms, Lena pulling her legs up to her chest. They don’t speak for a couple minutes but Kara was right, the fresh air does help and she doesn’t feel quite as overwhelmed anymore. The sun touches her face and she tilts her head up towards the sky for a second, looks at the clouds and watches the way the wind disperses them in a slow dance.

After a while she turns her attention back to Kara, sitting next to her. She watches as Kara takes a sip from one of the shop’s own cups, filled with steaming hot cocoa. When Kara finds Lena’s eyes on her, she turns around, offers her a small smile and then passes her the cup.

“It’s yours,” Lena tries to protest.

“We can share.”

Lena smiles at the sentiment and takes a couple small sips. She doesn’t usually go for hot cocoa, her mother didn’t allow her to have it and called it childish but she finds that she actually enjoys it. It’s warm and a little too sweet and it does help to ease the weight on her chest just a little bit.

“I’m really sorry about this, you must think I’m super lame,” Lena says after another couple of sips and companionable silence.

“No, I really don’t,” Kara replies simply.

They sit in silence for a while longer after that, passing the cup between the two of them.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Kara breaks the silence eventually.

Lena’s immediate reaction is to shake her head but when Kara just nods in understanding and turns her attention back to the street, she finds herself speaking after all.

“I just- you’ve probably heard about my brother…”

“Yeah.”

Lena isn’t sure whether that’s the answer she was hoping for or not. In a way it’s nice to know that people here seem to know about her family and that they can still find it within themselves to show her kindness. But on the other hand it would have been nice to have a clean start here, to not be tainted from the beginning.

“It’s just… still raw and one of the customers-“ She breaks off there. She can feel her fingers begin to clench with the weight of her words again and she honestly isn’t sure whether she can make it through that whole ordeal again without starting to cry. But thankfully Kara just takes her hand again and squeezes it softly.

“I heard,” she says with another squeeze. “For what it’s worth I think you handled him exceptionally well.”

“Crying on a curb is handling it well?” She laughs even though there’s tears once again penetrating her voice.

“I mean, Alex once yelled at a customer and then ran out. I once started crying right behind the counter because they insulted me. So you know, bottom line is that customers can be assholes,” Kara says on a shrug.

Lena gasps in theatrical shock, “My, my, Kara Danvers swearing.” Because even though she hasn’t known her for long, she had noticed that Kara usually uses words like _fudge_ and _golly_ to avoid swearing at all cost.

“I choose the appropriate moments for it,” Kara says and she looks so proud of herself in that moment that Lena can’t help but laugh.

“I’m sorry about your brother, and also about that customer,” Kara says, flashing her a small, but comforting smile.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For I don’t know… sitting with me, the cocoa, not being mean to me like most everyone else.”

“You don’t deserve that.”

Lena just shrugs at that which Kara apparently interprets as an argument because she then adds a little more fiercely, “You don’t. I mean I don’t know you that well yet, you’ve only been here for like a month. But you have been so kind to everyone. You covered for Alex when she was going through stuff with Maggie and had to go to break room to just take a breath. You helped me out when there was a rush, even though your shift was long over and you could have just gone home. You stood up for Winn when somehow pointed at him and called him toy boy. You are always so sweet and kind and just… I love all of these people here so much. The only good thing about this job is the people we work with and you… you just fit right in, you know? You are just-“ She breaks off her passionate speech only because Lena starts crying again.

“No, oh my god, I’m sorry, please don’t cry.” She looks so upset that she made her cry and quickly fumbles in her jacket pocket to retrieve a pack of tissues that Lena takes gratefully.

“No, I’m sorry I just, I apparently cry easily,” she laughs while wiping away her tears. The tissue is largely stained with her mascara now and for a second she worries about how she must look. Mascara streaks everywhere, blotchy skin, tears and all, but Kara is still sitting next to her, still holding on to her hand, still smiling at her, and so it doesn’t seem to matter too much.

“Yeah, well so do I. We should watch a Disney movie together some day, that would be a right tear fest,” Kara chuckles.

“I might just take you up on that offer,” Lena replies softly. She’s never had a movie night kind of friend. She hasn’t even seen a lot of Disney movies. So while she isn’t sure whether this is a serious offer or not, she would actually like nothing more than to be friends with Kara Danvers.

“I’d like that,” Kara replies and she sounds so genuine that Lena actually believes her.

It’s only then that Kara looks at her wrist watch and with a quick, “shoot, I should get back,” jumps up into a standing position.

“Yeah so should I,” Lena nods while getting ready to get up herself.

“You can stay here, I’ll cover for you until you can deal with customers again,” Kara says having already opened the door and stepped half-way through it. She winks at her and then pulls the door shut behind her so quickly, she doesn’t even catch Lena’s soft “thank you.”

 

* * *

 

 

Three years later, they’re still in that same break room together. Lena has pulled her chair back so that she can put her feet into Kara’s lap, while they both eat Chinese takeout and potstickers. (Or rather Kara eats all the potstickers, gently threatening to throttle Lena should she dare to not share hers with her.)

Three years later they’re in the break room together, planning their next Disney movie marathon and singalong night and which snacks to get. Three years later they have a multitude of odd games and inside jokes and three years later Lena has a standing invitation to Danvers Christmas, birthday, Easter, and Thanksgiving parties. Three years later Lena still marvels at how she got from crying in the breakroom to this moment right now.

“Lena, are you eating your last potsticker?”

“You mean my first potsticker?”

“Yeah that one.”

“Will you hurt me if I do?”

“It’s possible.”

“You can have it.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah I’m planning on drinking most of your hot cocoa anyway.”

“Okay good.”

 

* * *

 

 

While Kara and Lena have their own shipping situations going on and have their own games to pass the time, the others have also found a relationship to entertain them. Namely the Lena and Kara ship that was first called upon by Lucy Lane. So now, whenever a shift is slow, they find themselves gossiping about their colleagues’ love life, or lack thereof.

“Yesterday, Lena tripped when cleaning up a table and nearly dropped some cups and a guy was kind of laughing at her and Kara refused to serve him,” Winn tells the others with a laugh. “It was actually kind of comical the way he looked when she said she didn’t serve rude customers.”

“Did he leave then?” Alex asks.

“No, Lena actually stepped in and took his order and when Kara looked offended, she placed her hand on her shoulder very gently and just went thank you for this but really, it’s okay.”

“And then they looked into each other’s eyes for ages again,” Lucy complains but there is a smile on her lips that speaks of the fondness she has for her two friends even though their obliviousness drives her crazy sometimes.

“Oh, in that meaningful Kara and Lena way?” Alex asks.

“Of course,” Winn sighs and then adds a bit more wistfully, “You know, I wish I had a person who would look at me like that, like they saw something in me every time.”

“I know,” Lucy sighs.

“I mean they look at each other like this all the time though, like you know how many times I’ve had movie nights with the two of them and Kara looked at Lena like that after she’d told her her order for the pizza place?”

Winn chuckles a little at that. “Oh god or when Lena wins at Monopoly and Kara looks at her like she just built the world.”

“To be honest I think it’s brave of you to have a movie night with just the two of them,” Lucy comments on Alex’ remark.

“I know. I started bringing Maggie along. We call it our double-date night now.”

“Do Kara and Lena know?”

“Of course not, remember when Winn called them girlfriends as a joke?”

Both Lucy and Winn laugh at the memory of Kara and Lena blushing and doing various versions of the “oh no, we’re just friends” and “what do you mean?” dance that they’ve been doing for the past years whenever someone dared to comment. There are always various stages of bashful blushing and that half-shrug half-laugh motion that is actually quite painful to watch.

“Why are they so weird about it though, like they love each other, how long is it going to take them?” Lucy huffs out in frustration.

“I mean we’ve been betting on them for the past couple years now and we’ve never been right, so who knows at this point?” Alex comments.

“Where are we on the pool by the way?” Winn asks, “Because James said he wanted in, he gives them two months.”

“Oh that youthful naiveté,” Lucy sighs. “Remember when we all gave them two months at most and look where we are now.”

“Lucy your time is about to run out again, you gave them until the fifteenth which is in-“

“Two weeks, I know, I’m never gonna win.”

“They do make it rather difficult for us.”

“Maybe we should just you know… help out?” Winn suggests with a shrug.

“I’ve tried,” Alex says, “Believe me I’ve tried. But I think they need to get there on their own, especially Lena. I mean you know her, she never trusts anything good and I think she’ll need to learn to allow this on her own.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Saying that, Lena has been staying at Kara’s for most of the week again,” Alex says with a fondly exasperated expression.

“Hmm, a relationship definitely hurtling towards something,” Winn comments.

“More like slowly etching,” Lucy quips which makes Alex laugh.

“I don’t know, jokes aside, I really do hope that they figure it out sooner rather than later. They’d be good to each other and I think they both deserve that.”

“Coming from the older sister that truly means a lot. I don’t think you’ve ever approved of anyone before,” Lucy says.

“Lena’s different. She-“ Alex breaks off for a second to think of her sister and her best friend. The way they were sitting on Kara’s sofa last night, Lena’s head in Kara’s lap, eyes closed and fast asleep while Kara was playing with her hair. The way the two of them rushed out to the supermarket in just their pajamas when they decided that Ben and Jerry’s was a necessity just two minutes before the shop was closing. The way Lena had stayed over at Kara’s for an entire week when she had gotten sick, the way she had made every soup from a soup-recipe book for her and then force-fed them to Kara, who complained endlessly about having to eat a vegetable. The way Kara had kissed Lena’s forehead when she had fallen asleep on her sofa a couple months ago. They’re little things that come to mind but she knows what they mean. She knows that the two of them are comfortable around each other in a way that makes both of their faces light up whenever they see each other. It’s kind of annoying actually. Because whenever they meet, both of them smile for a solid ten minutes like the huge dorks that they are and then continue to tell each other how happy they are to see each other like it doesn’t happen nearly every day and like they haven’t texted every single second they haven’t been around each other anyway. Alex and Maggie once nearly made a drinking game out of it but then didn’t follow through because the whole interaction was so genuine and so full of joy, it felt cruel to mock them.

“Lena loves Kara just as much as Kara loves her.” Alex finally finishes her sentence. And it’s simple. And it’s true. And she hopes that the two of them figure that out themselves soon.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s 1:30 in the morning when the night shift finally draws to a close. They’ve already locked the door and put up most of the chairs. Kara started sweeping the floor while Lena is cleaning the counter and loading the dishwasher. The radio plays in the background but Lena can’t really hear it over the noise of the running tap, while she is brushing off some of the dirtier plates before loading them. And so she is confused for a second when she hears Kara squeal a little and watches her do a mad dash across the room to grab the remote and turn up the volume. Seconds later, ABBA’s Dancing Queen is blaring through the small expanses of the café, resounding from every wall.

She laughs when she sees Kara fling her apron like she is wearing some 70s disco outfit and nearly doubles over when Kara then starts performing all the dance moves with the aid of her broom, using its stick as a make-do microphone stand.

“You can dance, you can jive,” she practically screams with the music and does all the moves in Lena’s direction before yelling, “Come on Lena, dance with me, you are the dancing queen!”

“You’re a dork,” Lena screams back just as loudly.

“So be a dork with me!”

And Lena finds once again that it’s actually impossible to say no to Kara and so she just turns off the water and steps out from behind the counter to take Kara’s hand, who has now gotten rid of the broom. She rolls her eyes a little when Kara starts swinging her around at first, but they both know she’s just pretending to be annoyed because a couple seconds later she laughs out loud when Kara dips her back. She holds her in this dramatic pose for a second before Lena laughs out a “Pull me back up” and Kara does just so, effectively squishing the two of them together.  

They continue to swing each other around, both of them giggling, hands clasped and heads falling backwards with laughter. Eventually, Lena bumps Kara into one of the tables by accident which causes them both to stumble a little. As a result, Kara drops down, rather inelegantly, onto one of the chairs that they haven’t put up yet. She drags Lena along with her and for a moment she thinks she might end up on the floor, but Kara sneaks her arm around her waist in the last moment and effectively pulls her into her lap and secures her there. Then the two of them just sit like this for a moment, slightly out of breath, cheeks red and eyes sparkling, while the song fades out.

“I love night shifts when they’re with you,” Kara says, still a little out of breath, still with a smile perched on her lips.

“Yeah me too,” Lena replies with a smile of her own. (The actual truth is that she loves everything when it’s with Kara. But they don’t talk about stuff like that.)

 

* * *

 

 

“Please can you clean the espresso machine, Lena?” Kara asks for the umpteenth time in the past half an hour. Her voice has a slight edge to it that seems to be on the fence between faintly whiney and downright begging.

“I cleaned it last time,” Lena replies while finishing a takeaway order for a woman waiting behind the counter.

“Maybe Alex could-“ Kara starts speaking while already turning towards her sister, who is standing with the cash register and immediately glares at her.

“Do not even look at me. I’m only here for half an hour, then I’m out of here and going for a date with my girlfriend.”

Kara groans dramatically and immediately returns her attention to her best friend. “Lena,” she draw out the _a_ at the end for a while, and pushes up her glasses in a way she knows distracts Lena.

“No.”

“But you love me.”

“Not enough to clean the machine for you,” Lena replies dryly.

Kara’s eyes widen in shock and she pouts as she exclaims a “what” like some kind of kicked puppy.

“Okay do not use this one me. Yes, I do of course love you enough to do it, but I’m still not going to.”

“I’ll buy you tacos after shift?”

“No.”

“Kale?”

“Kara-“

“Please, last time I poured hot water over myself.”

“Yes, because you were messing around,” Alex pipes up from the background.

“Okay so first of all, I wasn’t messing around, I was simply trying a creative approach and-“ Kara immediately starts to argue which causes Lena to chuckle a little as she squeezes by her to reach for a cloth to start wiping down the tapware.

Kara, however, uses this moment to reach out for her and wraps her arms tightly around her middle, effectively hanging on to her as she tries to navigate around the counter now.

“Please.”

“No,” Lena replies, entirely unfazed by Kara’s antics. When she finds that Kara isn’t going to let go of her any time soon, she just shrugs and keeps walking, Kara glued to her side with her arms wrapped around her waist. She is dimly aware of the fact that Alex is shaking her head, smiling at the two of them from her position at the register.

“I’ll do all your chores. I’ll take out the trash on my own.”

Lena just rolls her eyes at that.

“Plus tacos and a movie?” Kara adds hopefully.

Lena is still walking with Kara attached to her side when the door chimes open and a customer steps in and towards their counter. He is studying the menu and not paying close attention to what is going on behind the counter but Alex still turns to them and hisses, “Alright, would you two behave please, we’ve got customers.”

Kara looks up at Lena with wide, hopeful eyes and Lena in turn just sighs and rolls her eyes at her, before finally relenting. "Fine tacos and a movie it is.”

“Great,” Kara lights up.

“I’m choosing the movie.”

“Okay.”

 

* * *

 

 

Kara notices that something is up immediately. At first, she just notices the way Lena moves around the tables a lot slower than she usually does. Then she picks up on the way she glances at the clock every five minutes, checking how much time she has left on shift, which she usually doesn’t do. There is also something about her smile that is different today, like it’s been dimmed down, doesn’t reach her eyes like it usually does, doesn’t make the dimple in her cheeks appear.

Something is wrong and it worries Kara that she doesn’t know what it is. She wants to talk to her about it, ask her, but of course, today of all days has to be a busy one and they hardly get even a second to themselves. And so, all she can do is watch her friend carefully and to allow their hands to brush against each other a couple more times than she can pretend is an accident. It makes Lena smile every time though. So at least there’s that.

She also mouths a small “you okay?” when she can hardly stand it anymore, but of course Lena only nods her head and moves on with work. It’s what she does though, and Kara knows this. Lena has this incredibly frustrating tendency to bury herself in work whenever she is feeling miserable; like that day when Lex called her from prison and she was upset but didn’t want to tell anybody, so she just worked three days in a row, not sleeping until she nearly collapsed behind the counter and Kara dragged her outside to talk to her.

When the guests finally begin to filter out and it’s only the two of them left on shift, Kara steps towards her hesitantly and just stands next to her until Lena turns her head to look at her.

“You okay?” She asks out loud this time, voice still hushed so that the remaining customers won’t be able to hear.

“Yeah,” Lena replies and continues refilling the boxes of coffee until Kara places her hand on top of Lena’s and effectively stops her movements.

“You’ll tell me later?”

And Lena turns around to her and Kara can see the dark lines underneath her eyes, the way they break her face apart, make her more shadow. “Yeah, I will.”

It takes another hour for all the customers to leave and when they finally do, Kara sits down on the floor behind the counter and pats on the tiles next to her.

Lena follows her example without speaking, just looks at her as she fumbles with her hands nervously, eyes trained on the way her fingers twist and dig away at the soft skin of her palms. Kara carefully places her own hand on top of them, bringing them to a halt and turning them upwards, open and vulnerable, so she can intertwine her fingers with Lena’s.

“What’s going on?”

And Lena’s lips part, about to speak, when the familiar chime of the door breaks their moment and the steps of new customers ring clear through the shop.

They both shoot to their feet to serve the man and woman that have just entered the shop and when they finally leave again, a little bit wobbly on their legs, both of them giggling with the alcohol they’ve already consumed, their moment is gone.

 

* * *

 

 

They’re working the night shift again the next day and thankfully it’s a quiet one. They finish all their work in record time and close the doors at 2am on the dot, with all the chairs already put on the tables. Lena is still a quieter version of herself, a version of herself that reminds Kara all too much of the Lena who had initially begun to work here. The Lena who had been all softly spoken, the Lena who had stiffened up with surprise whenever Kara had touched her, before she had eventually gotten used to it and had even started initiating touch herself. The Lena who had carried around sadness like little pebble stones in open water.

And so when they finally lock the door and are about to leave for the changing room, Kara reaches out for her and grabs Lena’s hand to halt her movements, ignoring her questioning gaze. She pulls her down on the floor next to her and reaches up to the counter where she has prepared a bag of cookies that she now places between the two of them.

“What are you doing?” Lena asks.

“Do you have to be in the lab tomorrow?” Kara asks because she knows that while Lena works crazy hours here at the coffee shop, her hours at the lab are even worse and she doesn’t want her to miss out on sleep.

“No?”

“Okay, so you’ve got time?”

“I mean yeah…I guess?”

“Okay, so will you talk to me?”

And Lena looks at her for a long time, teeth cutting into her bottom lip, almost hard enough to draw blood and Kara has to fight the urge to reach out for her, smooth her index finger over the chapped flesh there. She folds her hands in her lap. Just to make sure.

Lena looks at the tiles on the floor for a while, their familiar black and white patterns. Then she looks back up at Kara. Her eyes are so green. And they’re so full of something- something raw and untouched, something vulnerable.

“I’ve been offered a full-time job,” Lena says quietly.

“Oh my god where?” Kara asks. There is something twisting inside her chest at Lena’s statement. Something not altogether pleasant. Something overjoyed for her friend all the same.

“At Luthor Corp.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh.”

“I mean that’s great.”

“I don’t know,” Lena shrugs and she looks so lost in that moment, so small in the dimmed down, amber light of the coffee shop that Kara can’t resist the urge to wrap her arm around her shoulder and pull her into herself just a little bit. “I mean, I’ve been working at the lab for years now and we discovered some incredible technology and it would be great to try and market it. I could do so much more research, I’d have much better access to resources. It would be great but just… They’ve offered me an executive position and I just… I don’t know whether I can do this.”

“Executive position… geez, Lena I knew you were good at your work in the lab but wow-“

Lena shrugs a little bit again like it doesn’t mean anything.

“I mean no offence but why did you keep this job?”

“I don’t know,” Lena shakes her head before eventually sighing and allowing her head to fall against Kara’s, allowing her to carry some of the weight. “I started working here after everything with Lex happened. I mean, I didn’t exactly need the money but I was still at uni and didn’t want to depend on my family after I graduated. I wanted independence from them more than anything else and when I started working at the lab after uni I just… I couldn’t leave this place. I mean… it just grew on me, you know?” She pulls back a little to search for Kara’s eyes, who is nodding along with her words. “Crazy shifts and all, I guess it just became a home?”

“I know what you mean,” Kara replies and Lena offers her a small smile at that.

“I don’t wanna become like them, Kara,” Lena whispers then and her voice sounds so small and sad it rips Kara right open. Because that’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? That’s the bottom of all of Lena’s fears and it hurts to see her lost like this, it hurts to see her made small like this.

“You’re not,” is all Kara can think to reply. She puts as much emphasis on the words as possible but she can still see the doubt lingering in Lena’s eyes.

“How can’t I, when I run their corporation?”

“You’ll make it your own. You can make your own name in all of this, Lena. I have never met a person as good as you and if anyone can rebuild this company to mean something good in the world, then it’s you.”

Kara is aware of the fact that Lena is fighting back tears and so she just pulls her into her side again, smiling as Lena’s hand falls onto her shoulder and into the crook of her neck easily. She tilts her head a little so she can press a small kiss to the crown of her head and whispers, “You can do this, you can make your own name, and I’ll be right there to cheer you on.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

They sit like this in silence for a while. There are tears still running along Lena’s cheeks, falling onto Kara’s work polo and there still seems to be a heaviness in the air that weighs them down, makes them stone.

“Is there something else?”

“No,” Lena replies a tad too quickly and so Kara pulls back, hand still placed on Lena’s shoulder.

“Lena?”

“What about you?” Lena eventually asks after a short moment of silence.

“What about me?”

“I won’t be able to see you.”

“Lena,” Kara almost laughs, “you’re my favorite person in the entire world, even if we’re not together because of work shifts, I’ll still be able to see you. Who’s gonna bring you coffee when you’re working in an office all day?”

That’s the first thing to really make Lena smile all day. Dimples and all.

“So we’ll still be friends?”

“I will always be your friend,” Kara says. “I’m afraid you’re kind of stuck with me.”

And Lena is still smiling when she replies. “I can live with that.”

 

* * *

 

 

Things change quicker than expected. When Lena accepts the position, they ask her to start as soon as possible and so she hands in her resignation and a month later, she comes by to hand back her apron, work polos and key.

There is of course a good-bye party, organized by Kara and the others, with a huge cake formed like Luthor Corp Tower. (It will be renamed L-Corp as Lena and Kara have decided during one of their last night shifts together.) Kara baked it herself though and even though she tried her hardest, it does look a lot more like a giant grey cake with a huge L on it than it resembles a building. Lena still cries when she sees it though. And then she doesn’t stop crying all through the celebration. There is a going away card for her and several presents like her own coffee machine she can take to the office with her and several mugs with the shop’s logo on them so she doesn’t forget them.

However, while Lena doesn’t work at the shop anymore, she is still a frequent fixture in it. She comes by almost every morning to get her coffee before work. Then Kara usually pops out during her lunch break to pick up Chinese and race to L-Corp to have lunch with Lena, even if it does mean that she is usually back five minutes late. And then there are the night shifts of course.

Kara works them on her own sometimes now and when Lena finds out about this, she starts brining by her paperwork and finishes it at one of the tables at the café instead of her office. So nothing really changes all that much, except that Kara can now tell every single customer who is willing to listen that one of their ex-colleagues is now working as a CEO and how proud she is of her.

It’s one of those nights now. One of those nights where Kara is working on her own. One of those nights where Lena comes in, work clothes and all and discards her high heels somewhere by the door to sit down at one of the tables with her legs crossed. One of those nights where Lena finishes her paperwork, while Kara is cleaning the counter.

They mostly work in silence on nights like this, and Winn once asked why Lena comes by at all when she could also just finish her paperwork in her office and then drop by at Kara’s after to watch a movie, rather than coming here first. And Kara had just shrugged in reply. “I don’t know, it’s just nice to have the company.”

Tonight, Lena is just finishing up one of her reports when Kara drops down on the chair across from her and pushes over a cup of coffee.

“What is it?” Lena asks suspiciously.

“Don’t worry, it’s a latte, no weird concoction this time.”

“Oh good,” Lena sighs and takes a sip. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You’re finished?”

“Just about, couple more minutes until the dishwasher is done so I can unload it and then we can leave.”

“You’re still up for movie night?”

“Sure… I mean if you are?”

“Of course.”

“So do you remember Frank and Margaret?” Kara asks and Lena nods wistfully while taking another sip of her coffee.

“Of course.”

“So they came by today and guess what-“

“What?”

“They’re dating!”

“No way.”

“Yes!”

“That’s incredible,” Lena laughs, “They can be like our legacy.”

“They really are, aren’t they,” Kara smiles. “Speaking about legacies, how’s yours going?”

“Hmm?”

“L-Corp?”

“It’s…” Lena trails off for a second, tempted to reply with a simple _good_ as she does with everyone else. But it’s Kara sitting in front of her. Her Kara. And so she replies with the simple truth. “It’s hard.”

“Can I do anything to help?”

“You already are.”

 

* * *

 

 

“So, I’ve got something to tell you,” Kara says on another night a couple months later. They’re both sitting behind the counter eating cookies that went out of date yesterday and were therefore free for grabs.

“Okay.”

“I’ve been thinking about my career and what I want to do in life…”

Lena nods, breaking another cookie in half and handing Kara one side while keeping the other to eat for herself.

“You know how I studied journalism at uni?”

“Yes, you told me that. You wanted to be the next Joan Didion.”

“Yes well, I’ve decided to apply at CatCo magazine.”

“Oh my god, Kara, that’s incredible,” Lena exclaims, delighted and genuine, and quickly reaches over to pull her friend in for a hug, before passing her the entire bag of cookies. “I think that deserves all the cookies to celebrate.”

“You know me,” Kara grins.

“So, what’s the job?”

“It’s just an assistant position but hopefully I can then work my way up to reporter one day.”

“I’m sure you’ll be great,” Lena says but notices the way Kara’s eyes are trained on the floor and so she reaches out to take Kara’s hand, tilts her head so that Kara is forced to look at her. “You know that right? That you’ll be the most wonderful reporter the world has ever seen?”

“I don’t know,” Kara shrugs a little.

“Kara, listen, you’ve helped me achieve my dream and I’m going to be there while you achieve yours okay, that’s how this goes. And I honestly cannot wait to see the incredible things you’re going to do with your life, because everything you do is nothing short of exceptional.”

“I’ve been working at a coffee shop for nearly four years now.”

“Yeah, and even the way you brew your coffee is remarkable.”

Kara just laughs at that but upon finding Lena’s serious expression she adds a, “you’re serious?”

“Yes.”

“It’ coffee, Lena.”

“And yet you make every single cup with kindness. I don’t know how to describe it, Kara. It’s just that you do everything you do with such care, such love, it’s just…. I don’t think I’ve ever met a person as good as you, a person who applies such love to everything she touches.”

Kara smiles a little at that and Lena squeezes her hand. “You will do just fine in a new job.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m just glad it’s me who is finally giving you a pep talk and not the other way around.”

“Not just for that though…. Thank you for knowing me like this.”

“Oh,” is all Lena can reply and she shrugs a little.

“I do think I will miss this place,” Kara says then, picking the remaining crumbs out of the cookie bag.

“I know what you mean,” Lena says, looking around the familiar room with a wistful expression.

“I mean this is where I first met you,” Kara says.

“This is where we first danced together,” Lena points out, thinking back to broom stick dances and laughter.

“This is where I hugged you for the first time.”

They look at each other for a long time after that, like they both know what is happening. Like they are both here in this moment together, holding hands, and everything is very clearly alight, very clearly pointed at something.

“You know,” Kara starts speaking again with a kind of hesitance to her voice, “I kind of liked having those firsts with you.”

“Yeah, I kind of liked that too,” Lena whispers, afraid that if she rose her voice even a little bit, the moment would shatter on the cold-tiled floor.

Kara moves a little closer then, closer and closer until their legs are brushing against each other and they can almost feel each other’s breath.

“Would it be okay, hypothetically speaking, if I kissed you here for the first time too,” Kara asks. She looks almost unspeakably nervous while saying it but thrilled to be asking too, thrilled to be here in this moment together right now.

“Hypothetically speaking,” Lena grins like this moment is light enough for it, like Kara hadn’t just ripped open her heart in front of her.

Kara still looks vulnerable there, in front of her, tough, eyes so close to Lena’s that she can read her every expression, every emotion, like she has learned to read her over the past couple years; and so she just reaches out for her, gently places one of her palms on Kara’s cheek and kisses her. It’s chaste and soft and both of them are still hesitant with this, whatever this is.

“Hypothetically speaking yes, that-“ Lena pulls back a little to reply but Kara doesn’t allow her to finish and just pulls her back in for another kiss. It’s rougher now, lips parting and teeth. Kara’s hands fall into Lena’s hair, pull at the loose bun and put her in disarray. Kara scoots forward a bit more until she is almost sitting in Lena’s lap, arms wrapped around her back, scrunching up Lena’s work blouse just enough to expose a bit of skin. It elicits a shiver from Lena and she can feel the way Kara smiles into the kiss at that. She then feels Kara skate her hand across the exposed skin at her back and revels in the way it makes her feel, like she is being set on fire in this coffee shop right here. It takes a long time for them to part this time.

“I really am going to miss this place,” Kara says breathlessly when she finally does pull back a little, just enough for her to be able to talk. Their lips are still close enough that Lena can see the little smear of lipstick she’s left in the corner of Kara’s mouth and so she quickly leans forward to kiss it away before replying.

“We’ll have more places, and we can always come back here if we crave to make up stories and drink the worst the world of coffee has to offer,” Lena smiles. Their hands are still intertwined between them and Kara’s thumb is running across the back of her hand in nonsensical patterns across the back of her hand and Lena carefully lifts their intertwined hands to her lips to kiss the back of Kara’s hand softly.

“Or to kiss,” Kara suggests then.

“Oh, I am definitely going to kiss you more places.”

“Good,” Kara smiles. “I’d really like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> So I don’t work at a coffee shop but I work at our local cinema and work the night shift (a lot). So this is the product of many (many) hours I spent bored during that shift. I’m so sorry it got this long and also super sorry if this was boring or anything. It was just a lot of fun for me to write.  
> Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it even a little bit.  
> Tumblr: dancingontiptoes  
> Twitter: concreteskies


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